


Don't slay dragons (and don't give your siblings any ideas either)

by chiara_scuro



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Annoying Siblings, Carry On Countdown 2020 (Simon Snow), Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Day 3: Retellings, Domestic, Established Relationship, Family, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Canon, idk guys it's fluffy, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27741049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiara_scuro/pseuds/chiara_scuro
Summary: Four years after the events of Carry On, Simon and Baz visit Baz's family for Christmas and the little Grimms decide to set up an interrogation for them. Featuring softness, Dorian Gray, the stairs incident and Baz trying to tell his siblings that slaying dragons is wrong.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 12
Kudos: 89
Collections: Carry On Countdown 2020





	Don't slay dragons (and don't give your siblings any ideas either)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> This is my first longer fic for the 2020 Carry On Countdown. The prompt was retellings. 
> 
> Thank you to [Aristocratic_Otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aristocratic_Otter/pseuds/Aristocratic_Otter) for beta reading this and also thank you to goth baby names websites for providing me with names for Baz's siblings. 
> 
> P.S.: this title is so long it could be a Panic! At The Disco song

BAZ

Snow fidgets nervously in his seat as I pull my car up in front of my family’s estate in Oxford. He’s always nervous about spending time with my family, even after four years. 

I put my hand on his knee, stilling his nervous bouncing.

“Hey. You’ll be fine.”

He bites his lip, not really looking at me. “I know,” he mutters.

“Mordelia started going to Watford this year, so I reckon she’ll be talking our ears off with her stories and hardly any attention will be on you,” I say. I know this is what he’s worried about; Simon tends to get uncomfortable when people fuss over him and my parents usually love to fuss over him. Their hearts are in the right place, bless them, and I’m glad my father is finally coming to terms with mine and Simon’s relationship, but they’ve yet to understand that Simon has different boundaries than most people.

He smiles a bit at my words. “I suppose.”

“Definitely,” I assure him. Last year, Mordelia spent the entire Christmas dinner talking about how excited she was to attend Watford, so now, we’re probably set for a whole evening of her chattering.

“Alright then,” he says, laying his hand over mine. “Let’s get this over with.”

-

Mordelia does spend the whole Christmas dinner talking about Watford. It’s actually making me a bit nostalgic. When she mentions how annoying her roommate is, Snow and I send each other significant looks across the table. Our seven and a half years of huffing and grimacing at each other almost feel like an inside joke now.

The topic hardly strays from Watford during dinner and it’s making me feel more than a bit nostalgic. I also worry about Snow – we don’t usually talk a lot about magic or Watford or anything like that, so I’m not sure how this will affect him, especially this time of the year, which is when everything went down. I know it’s been four years and Simon’s in a much better place now, with years of therapy behind him, but I still worry about him sometimes.

He seems to be doing fine, though, alternating between nodding and laughing along to Mordelia’s stories and stuffing his mouth full of food. (His table manners are still atrocious.) (I’d still like to slip him the tongue.) 

\- 

We’re all well exhausted after dinner and opening presents. The children are playing with their new toys and Simon is lounging next to me on the sofa, wearing a burgundy sweater that Daphne bought him. (I am eternally thankful to her. The way it brings out his eyes is a gift for me.) He looks sleepy and adorable and I think it might be time for us to call it a night.

We bid my family goodnight and go to my room, which is much cosier than my room in Hampshire. (No gargoyles.)

“My siblings will be laughing that your bedtime is earlier than theirs,” I say as Simon falls into bed.

“Shut up. I ate a lot of food,” he mumbles. “Are you going to come here or not?”

I laugh again as I slide into bed and he immediately wraps his arms around me, nuzzling into my neck. My hand comes up to brush through his hair.

“Read to me?” he asks, his voice so soft it makes my heart squeeze.

“I’d have to get my book then.”

He lets me untangle myself from him and I walk over to my backpack, fishing out _The picture of Dorian Gray_ , then get back into bed, seating myself against the headboard. Simon repositions himself so that he’s laying between my legs, his head on my chest, like we usually read books.

The whole book reading business started a few years ago, to help with his anxiety, but if he gets invested in the story, he’ll ask me to read to him more often. He’s pretty invested in _Dorian Gray_ , so we’ve been reading it a lot. My favourite part is where he’ll actually discuss the book with me. I always thought Simon didn’t care much for literature, but as it turns out, he just needed a different approach to it.

I open my book and start reading.

SIMON

My favourite part about reading with Baz is listening to his voice echo through his chest. Or maybe it’s how he does every character in a slightly different voice. Or maybe it’s how he lets me trail my fingers along his side, occasionally distracting him from the story.

His voice is rich and lush and I could listen to him read for hours. His hand comes down to brush through my hair and I close my eyes, letting go of everything but Baz’s voice.

I guess I’ve been still for too long, because Baz stops reading after a while. Maybe he thinks I’ve fallen asleep – it’s happened before.

“Are you still awake, love?” he asks, quietly enough that I wouldn’t be able to hear him if I actually was asleep. I nod against his chest.

“Do you want me to keep reading?” he asks.

“’m sleepy,” I mutter.

“Figured. Come on, let’s get you to bed.” I feel his muscles shift in his chest as he sets the book down on his bedside table.

“I am in bed,” I object, not wanting to move.

“I won’t have you sleeping in that jumper,” he laughs, shifting underneath me. I groan, but slowly scramble up to a sitting position. “See, you have it in you,” Baz teases me.

“Shut up, you tit,” I elbow him.

“Careful, Snow, or I’ll make you sleep on the sofa,” he says, raising his eyebrow at me.

“Like hell you will.”

“Hm, it’s tempting. The whole bed to myself, no snoring—”

I cut him off by kissing him and he responds way too eagerly for someone who’d actually want me to sleep on the sofa.

“Still tempted?” I ask, pulling away just an inch.

“I could be persuaded,” he smirks. I kiss him again.

Then the door opens and I jump away so fast, I nearly fall out of bed.

“Knocking, Mordelia, knocking!” Baz snaps, sounding annoyed. I turn around to see not just Mordelia, but the whole gang of little Grimms standing by our doorway. They’re all in their pyjamas already and Baz’s little brother is clutching a large stuffed bat to his chest. (Baz says his family isn’t goth, but _come on_.)

“Were you snogging the Chosen One?” Mordelia asks. Dru and Merula giggle at her words and Baz rolls his eyes.

“Go back and knock,” he says. The children leave the room and Baz rolls his eyes at me. “Why is the unlocking spell one of the first spells they learn at Watford?” he groans. “And why can she cast it so _quietly_? I have vampire hearing and I didn’t hear her!”

“In your defence, love, you were a little bit distracted,” I grin at him.

“Pish. You’re hardly distracting,” he smiles. I want to prove him wrong, but a knock on the door reminds us we don’t exactly have the privacy for these shenanigans. Baz rolls his eyes.

“Come in,” he says in a bored voice. His siblings enter the room again. “What do you want?”

“Were you snogging the Chosen One?” Mordelia repeats her question. I feel my cheeks flush bright red.

“I told you to stop calling him that. What do you want?”

“Well, er…” Mordelia suddenly looks embarrassed.

“We came to ask for stories about the Chosen One!” Merula says excitedly. I can _feel_ the intensity of Baz’s eyeroll, even though I’m not looking at him.

“The Chosen One is a mess and he hacked my bed with his sword once. There, a story,” he says, sounding annoyed. 

“Baz, it’s fine.” Baz almost never talks to his siblings like that, so I’m assuming he’s only doing this because he thinks I’m not up for talking about it. I mean, he’s right, I don’t _usually_ want to talk about it, but they’re just children. And besides, I do have some pretty cool stories to tell.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Mhm,”

“Well, in that case Mordelia, your wish has been granted.”

BAZ

I’m apprehensive about this – and rightfully so. Simon doesn’t want to talk about his past and I don’t want to risk his good mood for the sake of entertaining my siblings. (Who should all be in bed right now, mind you!)

We’ve successfully kept them in the dark about most of Simon’s past. They know that he defeated the Humdrum by sacrificing his magic, but that’s it. Neither my parents nor I have ever gone into much detail about all the Humdrum attacks, or about the Mage, or Simon’s uncontrollable magic, but I guess Mordelia must’ve heard some stories at Watford. I can’t see any other reason why she’d be asking for stories about Simon.

The four of them crawl into my bed (I have to lift Victor) and Simon settles himself against the headboard, biting his lip.

“Snow,” I start but he shakes his head.

“It’s just… What do I even tell them? There’s _so much_ ,” he laughs dryly.

“Is it true you’ve slayed a dragon?” Druscilla asks.

“It’s _slain_ a dragon,” I correct her. “And it was an accident. Don’t slay dragons.”

“Actually, your brother here also fought a dragon, when we were in our eighth year,” Simon says. The children look at me with their eyes wide.

“Why do I not know this?” Mordelia demands.

“It’s not a story for little children,” I say.

“I’m not little!”

“Wait… how did you fight it?” Merula asks.

“Well, Snow helped me,” I say, suddenly remembering his magic coursing through my veins all too vividly.

“He cast a wicked powerful nursery rhyme,” Snow tells them.

“Did you kill it?”

“Dru, you don’t kill dragons. It’s wrong,” I tell her. She just shrugs.

“Did you kill anything else?” she asks. (Sometimes I’m concerned about Druscilla. She talks about killing things far too much.)

“Snow evaporated a chimera in our third year,” I say.

“Only because _someone_ set it loose,” Snow turns to me.

“Who did?” Mordelia asks. Snow is about to tell her, but I shoot him a look and nod at my siblings, hoping that he’ll understand that he should not give my siblings any ideas.

“Um… well… I dunno. Someone,” he fumbles. Good man. “Probably someone who didn’t think it through, I mean, chimeras are very dangerous, so whoever did it was pretty uh… irresponsible,” he continues. I clear my throat and send him a look. Snow catches my expression and just raises an eyebrow as if to say _you asked for it_.

“What other monsters did you two fight?” Mordelia asks, shifting on my bed excitedly.

“Um…” Simon scratches the back of his head. “I mean we mostly fought each other when we were at Watford. Baz pushed me down the stairs.” My little siblings giggle.

“You fell, Snow. I was just there to witness it,” I roll my eyes at him.

“Why did you push him down the stairs?” Merula asks.

“I _didn’t_. But Snow was a very annoying roommate. He put a polecat in my wardrobe and I had to spend the whole weekend spelling my shirts back together.”

That makes the children erupt in laughter.

“Hey, the polecat pooped on my bed, so I was worse off than you!” Snow defends himself.

“You brought it on yourself, Snow,” I smile at him. The polecat incident was only funny because Snow tried casting **Out, out damned spot** on his bed and ended up spelling away his duvet.

We end up telling Watford stories to my siblings far past their bedtime. In the end, I’m the only one talking and Mordelia is the only one still listening. The rest of them all nodded off some time ago.

“I think it’s time to go to bed,” I tell Mordelia. She frowns.

“If they’re going to sleep here, I want to too,” she says, nodding at our other siblings.

“They’re not going to sleep here. I’ll carry them to bed. Go. And be quiet so that Father doesn’t hear you.”

“Fine,” she sighs. “But we’ll continue this tomorrow.”

“We will,” I assure her.

“Goodnight, Basil.”

“Goodnight.”

She closes the door carefully behind her and I turn to look at the sleeping bunch on my bed. The twins are curled up on the duvet and Victor is in Simon’s lap, both of them fast asleep. Looking at them makes my heart swell. It always does when I see Simon interact with my siblings. He’s a mess of awkwardness and nervous fumbling and saying the wrong thing, but he’s great with my siblings and they all love him.

Moments like these make me wonder if this is something that could be part of our future. I mean, Simon and I have never talked about children before, at least not seriously, but I know that he wants them, and I think he knows I want them. Still, with everything going on at Watford and with his mental health, I never wanted to push the conversation any further than what he was comfortable with. It’s only been a few years since things slowed down for us and I know we’ll have plenty of time for this conversation when the time is right.

I know we’re going to have the conversation, though; I know for certain that Simon wants a future with me now. I found a ring in his sock drawer a few months ago. I didn’t tell him about it because I think he’s just waiting for the right moment and I don’t want to rush him. Besides, telling him that I found his ring would probably mean I’d have to tell him about my ring too (which I’ve been successfully keeping a secret, because I’m better at hiding things than he is) and I’m definitely waiting for the right moment.

It’s just nice to know that we’re on the same page. Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am.

“Simon,” I whisper, shaking him lightly. He stirs, then blinks at me, his eyes bleary from sleep.

“Hm?” he mumbles.

“Can you help me get them to bed?”

“Oh, um. Sure.”

He carries Victor and I carry the twins. Technically, they’re old enough that they can walk on their own, but I don’t want to wake them and besides, I have vampire strength. Two seven-year-olds are hardly a struggle.

“His room is to the right,” I whisper to Simon when we reach the corridor where the children’s rooms are. He nods and pushes the door open with his foot.

I tuck the twins in their beds, which is somewhat of a struggle because I’m not entirely sure which bed is which and I have to deduce it by the toys they have on their beds. Once they’re both tucked in, I turn around and see Simon standing by the doorway, watching me. His eyes are soft and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I was thinking when I was watching Victor sleeping in his lap.

“Alright, Snow?” I ask quietly once we’re out in the corridor. He just smiles at me, lacing our fingers together.

“Alright. You?”

“Never been better,” I smile and I think it might be the truth. I press a kiss on his temple. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Now that we're here, I'd also like to invite you to check out the first two days of COC 2020, which I only posted on Tumblr because they were so short  
> [Day 1: Found family](https://vampire-named-gampire.tumblr.com/post/635774179233447936/carry-on-countdown-day-1)  
> [Day 2: Distance](https://vampire-named-gampire.tumblr.com/post/635855867339833344/carry-on-countdown-day-2)


End file.
